TPS will celebrate Earth Day this Friday, April 29, 2016 --- and it is jam-packed full of fun!

Walk, bike, scoot, or take public transportation school on April 29th to help save Mother Earth. Then stop by the Earth Day table in the Lombard Street yard at morning drop-off to pick up a healthy snack and an Earth Day sticker to show your support.

To start off the school day, all students will attend an Encuentro meeting. During this meeting, the Student Green & Healthy Ambassador Team, affectionately known as "The Compostables," will be presented an award for their achievements. These students meet monthly, and work on Pathways to Sustainability via the International Eco-Schools Program, administered in the US by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). Kim Martinez, NWF's Regional Education Manager for the Mid Atlantic, will present The Compostables with an Eco-Schools Bronze Award! Students earned this award for their actions on the Waste and Consumption Pathway and for the development of the TPS Eco-Code! Next school year, the students will focus on the Energy Pathway, and hope to achieve a Silver Award.

The Earth Day fun continues after school in both school yards, 3:00-4:30p.m. All students, families, caregivers, and the greater TPS community are invited to stay after school to participate.

~ In the Lombard Street yard, there will be tables and stations for Earth Day related games; Earth Day crafts (including pollinator-friendly seed planting, birdhouse making, and recycling sculpture making); healthy and delicious snacks and drinks will be available for sale; plant sales (herb starts, hanging baskets, and bedding flowers); and student creators with their wares for sale. There will also be collections for "hard-to-recycle" items, such as household batteries, markers, broken crayons, and snack & energy bar wrappers for TerraCycle. Special bins will be available for gently used sneakers (if they are beat, please take them to a Nike or North Face store for free recycling!) For musical entertainment, Measure-for-Measure will perform at 4:15p.m.

~ Preschool through 3rd graders are invited to bring their bikes to the South Street garden yard to participate in a bike check and bike course sponsored by Bicycle Therapy - let Bicycle Therapy teach you how to do a bike check and then ride through an obstacle course.

Volunteers are still needed to help staff tables before and after school. If you are interested and available, please contact Michelle Niedermeier, Caren Cohen, or Virginia Friedman.